From Taunton and Torbay to visiting neighbours across Cheshire and Merseyside, one of my greatest pleasures as LGA Chair is visiting our member councils to find out firsthand about the incredible work they are doing every day for local residents.
For example, my LGA colleague Cllr Pete Marland, Leader of Milton Keynes City Council, invited me to visit the MK East development.
It was positive to hear about the council’s ambitious plans for the development, including solar panelling and ground-sourced energy, and on local transport and biodiversity.
We also toured the brand-new primary school – built before the first house bricks were put down.
It is these key pieces of public infrastructure that are crucial to delivering homes and communities, not just houses, and it was great to see this in action.
In Luton, the council’s work across systems, agencies and within neighbourhoods on early intervention and prevention was brought to life in a visit to the town’s family hub, with Leader Cllr Hazel Simmons MBE.
Co-located within Luton’s central library alongside housing, welfare and Citizens Advice services, the hub is a key driver in improving children’s health and wellbeing and a powerful example of a council delivering wider public health impact.
It is particularly satisfying to see how the LGA’s lobbying and policy work is further supporting councils’ work in these and other areas – including public health, where we have secured a ‘win’ on earlier and multi-year funding settlements (see ‘Funding increase for public health’).
Consequently, I was delighted to talk to more than 1,000 delegates at the LGA’s and Association of Directors of Public Health’s annual public health conference about health inequalities in England – which remain stark and persistent.
However, they can be changed – because health is created in homes, schools, workplaces and high streets. It is shaped by our planning decisions, housing standards, economic development, environmental health, early years services and community safety.
These services are at the heart of everything councils do – and if health prevention is to be real, local government must be central to it.